The Wedding Crasher
by RosesBud
Summary: Based on a challenge from Meakh, who wanted Rose to be the Runaway Bride at the end of Doomsday. Unashamedly 10Rose! NOW COMPLETE!
1. The Runaway Bride

Based on a challenge from Meakh who wanted Rose to be the runaway bride (full details on Doctor Who forum pages)

Disclaimer: Doctor Who is owned by the BBC

**Chapter 1 – The Runaway Bride**

A vision, that was what the Doctor was sure he must be seeing.

A vision, in white.

For once he'd wiped away the tears and moved around the console one time, setting the Tardis on a new course and fighting to regain his composure, he'd found her standing there.

She had her back to him. Full wedding gown, veil, the lot. He held his breath and blinked, wondering if his grief at saying goodbye to Rose moments before had driven him mad.

"What?" he asked finally, breaking the spell.

She turned to face him quickly, as if he'd stunned her out of some reverie.

To have found anybody suddenly standing there was surprise enough, but once faced with the look of shock on her achingly familiar face, his hearts screamed, 'Rose!'

His head said, somewhat more sensibly, 'Land on deserted planet, large brandy, off to bed with ya.'

She made a rather undignified squeaking noise which confirmed she was as surprised to see him as he was to see her.

"What?" he asked again, brain too stunned to come up with anything more complex, that one word still pretty much summing up all he was struggling to comprehend right now.

"Who are you?" she, Rose, asked warily.

"B - " the Doctor began, his face screwed up in disbelief. But, you're Rose. You _know_ me.

So it looked like Rose, but she apparently had no idea who he was.

"Where am I?" the Rose girl asked, her voice raising a little in volume. She was clearly becoming agitated.

"What?" he repeated, his voice rising to match hers. This was rapidly making less sense than it was making before, and that was saying something.

"What the hell is this place?!" she snapped then, trying to look like she wasn't to be messed with.

"What?!" the Doctor yelled, abandoning all hope of understanding what was happening.

"I mean," she said then, holding a hand to her forehead and another in front of her as though willing him to be quiet a moment. "This has to be a trick, right?" Her voice had calmed, but she'd lost nothing of her cool gaze when she fixed it on him again.

He said nothing, just stood and stared, his frown softening to a look of concern. Well she looked like Rose and she sounded like Rose, although her accent had refined slightly. Less cockney. Rose from the future?

"This isn't real," she told him. "You _can't _be real," she took a faltering step towards him and he found himself stepping back in alarm.

She stopped speaking at that and lowered her head slightly, pinching the bridge of her nose, her eyes tightly shut. The Doctor took a moment to look her up and down. Skinny, he thought. But strong. Shorter hair, what's that style called? A man's name. Bob, that's it. Still heavy on the peroxide. Dark brows furrowed in concentration. Definitely looks older though, her face not so round. But how _much_ older?

"How long has it been?" he asked gently, breaking the silence that had descended.

Her head shot up suddenly and she seemed to pull her whole self straight, hands on hips, the unwavering gaze back.

"Look," she said. "I don't know who you are, or how you've done all… this," she waved a hand at the console room around her, "_or_ what you're trying to achieve. But I'll tell you one thing, well, two things actually." She stomped forward and poked him in the chest. "One! I have met enough alien scum in my lifetime to know a mind trick when I see one, and two! You – are – not – the – Doctor!" She punctuated each word of her final sentence with a sharp poke through his suit jacket.

"Ow!" he complained, five times. This conversation was starting to remind him of a similar one they'd had right after he'd regenerated.

Rose was standing inches from him now, he could smell her perfume. It was so unbearably familiar that he had to will himself not to move, when all he wanted to do was gather her up in his arms. She continued to stand before him, face set with grim determination, foot tapping on the metal grill beneath her. The Doctor looked down at her feet and regarded the delicate ivory satin shoes peeking out from under the acres of lace that made up the skirt of her wedding gown.

"You're getting married," he told her, still staring at her feet.

"Well done," Rose told him, her voice cold. "Perhaps I should correct you though, I _was_ getting married. Standing outside the church with my Dad in fact, just about to walk down the aisle and poof!" She turned and paced away from him. He watched her. Her skirt swayed as she walked. "What _was_ that?" she asked, whirling around and marching back. "Transmat beam or something?" She stalked slowly closer and regarded him carefully. "You're not… Trill, are you?"

The Doctor shook his head numbly. Rose seemed dubious.

"And then I'm standing here," she went on. The Doctor stared at her mutely. "'Cept I'm not really standing here am I? Where am I really hmm? Lying on some laboratory table somewhere probably, being poked and prodded. Is that what this is all for, you testing people's reactions to their wildest dreams or something?"

"I…No -" the Doctor stammered ineffectually.

"What are you then, if you're not Trill?" She shook her head. "No, they might T-mat me and they might have motive, but they're not in to this kind of stuff. Which race is it screwing up my day this time?"

The Doctor gazed at her. She'd been talking, he knew, but he was going over what she'd said before. "Is that what this is then?" he asked quietly.

"What?" she asked, confused.

"Your wildest dream?"

"Wouldn't you like to know!" she taunted, lifting up her voluminous skirts and twirling back and forth a bit, an evil grin on her face.

"Yes please," he told her honestly.

With all the skirt lifting and bodice heaving she reminded him momentarily of Reinette. It was so, so, so, so weird to see her dressed like that. The Doctor squeezed his eyes tight shut a moment. Concentrate man! What was happening? Was she right, was this all someone's wildest dream? That someone being him? Was she not real? He gave the central console a sly sideways look. Is this you, old girl? The ship hummed in a non-committal fashion in his confused mind, which helped not one jot. The telepathic equivalent of 'No comment.'

Rose had moved to stand by the console and was idly pulling levers and flicking switches. The Doctor winced as her hand hovered dangerously close to the dematerialisation button.

"Have to hand it to you," she mumbled, in a wistful way. "This is very good. Or is it me that's good?" she looked him in the eye. "If this is all in my mind?"

"It's not in your mind," the Doctor told her, trying to sound like he believed it. She blinked once, twice. She was waiting for more. Damn it. "Look, can we start again?" he asked desperately.

"What?" she asked.

"Wasn't that my line?" he teased, attempting a smile.

"What?!"

"And that? Look, let me tell you what is really happening. What is actually, really happening. Or, at least what I think is," he amended, frowning, suddenly less convinced as she glared at him. He wasn't in the least bit sure, to be fair, but all he could go on was what appeared to be reality for him, and trust that the universe was working as it should be.

She stayed silent, mercifully, and he tentatively reached out a hand towards hers. Slowly he moved closer, sure she'd pull away at any moment, but when she didn't he grabbed at her fingers in shock and lifted them to his cheek.

She gasped and tried to pull away, but he had quite the hold and they ended up stood face to face, their clasped hands and outstretched arms a bridge between them. She began to struggle.

"Wait! Rose, listen," he said quickly, making sure he held her gaze completely with his own. "I don't know how, not yet, but you're here. You're really here," he told her, and smiled. "With me," he added, as an after thought.

"I can't be," she whimpered.

"You don't want to be?"

She shook her head. "No. I mean yes! But no, I can't be. I -" she stopped and pulled her hand away from his, stumbling backwards until she plopped in a marshmallow pillow of meringue and lace on the chair behind her.

For the longest time she just stared at him, so he walked over and slowly sank to his knees next to her. He gathered up her left hand in his and spent a little while staring unabashed at the rather large diamond engagement ring on her third finger.

"I have no idea how you got here," he said finally. "But you're here. And I have no idea how I can convince you this is true. But I'm pretty sure it is." Rose just stared at him. "I want it to be," he added, and smiled.

"I want it to be too," she said quickly, sitting forward and covering his hands with her own. "P'raps we could just decide it is and see what happens?"

"OK," he said, and chuckled.

"You're really real?" she asked in a small voice.

"As real as the nose on your face," he told her, poking it gently for emphasis. Then he smiled, and Rose smiled, and so he grinned and she did too, and so his hearts sang. But then her smile faltered and she sighed, sinking back in to her meringue pit.

"I'm supposed to be getting married," she said in a small voice. The Doctor didn't know what to say. "Mum'll be sitting there in that stupid hat, going nuts. Dad … god only knows what he'll think, me disappearing in front of him like that. Jonny's page boy so he'll be causing a fuss and as for Mickey -"

"He'll be wondering where his bride has got to?" the Doctor cut in.

"What?" she gazed at him nonplussed for a moment. "Oh! No," she grinned, "I'm not marryin' Mickey!"

"You're not?"

"God no, although he _is_ married, just… not to me," she smiled a funny smile which didn't last very long.

"So," the Doctor began, not sure he wanted to hear the answer to his next question. "Who _are_ you marrying?" He watched her face intently as he waited for her answer.

"Luke," she said, as if it were obvious. Her face betrayed no emotion at all, which he thought odd for someone who had just been zapped away from her husband-to-be moments before she said 'I do'.

"Luke," he repeated slowly, slightly over-pronouncing the 'k' sound in the middle. He found he was taking an instant dislike to the name.

"Yeah, he's a lovely guy," she said dazedly, "met him at work. He's from Cardiff."

"You don't say?"

"Mmm," Rose confirmed. She seemed to be gazing in to the middle distance somewhere over his right shoulder. "Thing is, I was sure. Absolutely sure and then… I wasn't."

"You wasn't? Erm, you weren't?" The Doctor tried to ignore the excited little flip his stomach gave.

"No. There was all the preparation. All morning, I was so excited." The look on her face had progressed to a faraway and dreamy one. "My mum buzzing round me like a blue arsed fly, hairdresser, make up girl. She paid through the nose for them."

"Don't think you got your money's worth," the Doctor told her seriously. "Not enough, you know." He waved a finger in front of her eyes. "Black stuff, goes on your lashes."

"Mascara," she said and gave a snort of laughter. "Yeah, definitely a bit too demure for me, hey?" They laughed together and the Doctor squeezed her hands. Finally Rose's giggles subsided. "Where was I?" she asked.

"You were unsure."

"Yeah. Well, no. I was completely sure all the months leading up to the wedding. Ever since he asked me really… So excited, everything good. All morning, all that fuss and I couldn't have been happier. In the car on the way there, the bridesmaids giggling, felt like a princess." The Doctor gave her a warm smile and she looked down at her flouncy dress. "Even if this puff-ball was mostly mum's idea. Then suddenly, I'm standing there at the church door with my arm through Dad's and I look up before we walk in and the church… It suddenly reminded me." The Doctor watched as her eyes seemed to cloud over.

"What?"

"It reminded me, of _that _church. The one we hid in when I saved him." She had been looking up in to the vaulted ceiling of the ship, but she brought her gaze back down and met his. "In 1987."

"Yes," the Doctor said softly.

"When I saved my _real_ father. An' I looked at Dad… Pete," tears immediately rolled down her cheeks then, and the rest came through slightly strangled. "An' he's not real. Not really, although he tries his best… and none of it's real, not work, not home, not London, not the whole bloody planet. Certainly not the church, or this stupid bloody dress," she bounced their hands in her lap. "Not my feelings."

The Doctor had the sense to stay silent, but he squeezed her hands tighter still and her hot tears splashed upon their knotted fingers.

"Stuff I thought I'd dealt with, moved on from, I never had. I was just, going through the motions, day by day." She yanked her hands away from his and stood up, pacing a few steps away. Her dress swung ahead of her when she stopped. "I turned around and I ran away from Dad, back down the steps, towards the car, no idea where I was going and then -" she paused. "That's the last thing I remember before being here," she finished quietly.

The Doctor hauled himself to his feet slowly.

"Oh Rose," he whispered. "I'm _so_ sorry."

"Five and a half hours," she mumbled suddenly.

"What?" he asked. Was that 'Word of the Day' or something?

"Five and a half hours. Always wait five and half hours you told me. Not five and half _years_!" She sounded angry and she looked it too.

The Doctor was stunned. _That_ long. It had been less than five _minutes_ for him.

"Rose -" he began, but she cut him off.

"Do you _know_ what I went through?" she yelled. "You told me, on that bloody beach, that I could never see you again. And it _hurt._ Like hell. And I _grieved_ for you. Like you'd died!" She was pacing back and forth beside the console now and it was all the Doctor could do to stay out of her way and not get trodden on. "'Cept it was worse, because you weren't dead, you were out there somewhere living, without me. And you were everywhere. In my past and my future. Just not there, in that universe." She swung around and glared at him. "Do you know what it's like, getting trapped in a parallel universe?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, I don't," he said, so quietly it was almost a whisper.

"It's like everything you ever thought was constant is gone. And I don't just mean my Dad's alive, or there's air ships everywhere… or there's no such band as Coldplay."

"There isn't?"

"No."

"Oh."

"I mean you think, what's the point? What is the point of my tiny little insignificant existence, if there's a million other universes out there and a million other versions of me doing it differently."

"You do?"

"Yes," she glared at him, but he realised that there was a hint of comedy in it now. "At first anyway," she went on, fighting a smile at how self-indulgent she was being. "It was horrible, but I got through it. I did what you asked me once, or I tried anyway, to have a good life. 'Have a _fantastic_ life Rose'." She gave a very passable impression of his former self.

"And eventually I felt as if I'd healed and when Luke asked me out I said yes, instead of no like I had every time before. And it felt good and normal and safe and that was OK. But now -" she faltered and once again looked sad and angry. The Doctor frowned, that hadn't lasted long. And then he realised she was crying. Strange things humans, their emotions could get so closely associated, you never knew if they'd laugh or cry.

The Doctor regarded his best friend for a moment. Her head had dropped in to her hands. He thought she looked like some broken angel, standing sobbing in her princess dress, lit from behind by the lights of his Tardis. He moved closer and cautiously reached out to touch one shuddering shoulder. She turned on him suddenly, make up running in rivulets down her cheeks.

"And now you're here!" she choked. "How dare you be here!" She swallowed hard on the next sob threatening to wrack her body and suddenly and dramatically closed the distance between them, flinging her arms around his neck.

The Doctor wrapped his arms around her shaking body, just as he had a hundred times before, and just as he'd longed to on the beach in Norway when they could look but not touch. He held her as her sobs subsided and her breathing calmed. She buried her face in his jacket and listened to his heart beats, breathed in his scent. Even he wasn't sure exactly how long they remained that way.


	2. Back to the Future?

**Thanks for all your lovely reviews... no I'm not sure Rose would have got married either, but that's the trouble with challenges - you don't make the rules!! Well, hope you like this chapter it's a long one!**

**Chapter 2 – Back to the Future?**

"So how long has it been for you Doctor?" Rose sniffed some time later, once she felt less desperate and the crying had eased. She and the Doctor had settled side by side in the console chair. The Doctor shifted beside her, looking intensely uncomfortable.

"You're not going to like this," he warned her.

"It's been hundreds of years hasn't it?" she worried, unable to meet his gaze, nervously folding a dampened tissue around her fingers. Panic flooded through her. "Oh God. You've probably forgotten who I even am, have you got someone else?" she looked around suddenly, expecting the latest in a long line of Rose Tylers or Sarah-Jane Smiths to appear before her.

"Rose," the Doctor said, grabbing her hand. "Look at me."

Slowly she brought her gaze level with his, wondering what was so awful it gave his face a look like he was facing a firing squad.

"When you appeared before me… It had been barely two minutes since we said goodbye in Norway," he told her. Rose could do nothing but stare, so he attempted to elaborate. "I was a wreck. I was... I just about had time to plot a new course and you were here."

Rose gave a short laugh, then a small sigh of resignation, accompanied by a wry smile.

"Now I know how Reinette felt," she told him. "It's always the slow path for everyone else isn't it Doctor?"

"Sometimes it seems that way," the Doctor agreed. "I'm so sorry."

"What for?" Rose asked suddenly, squeezing his hand. "For not having to suffer like I did? I'm glad you didn't Doctor. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy, and since Cassandra ain't even around anymore -"

They laughed tiredly and sank in the seat as one, heads gently knocking together before Rose's came to rest on his shoulder.

"Oh I think the Daleks definitely kept Cassandra off the 'Most Hated' number one spot," the Doctor quipped.

"Nah," she told him. "I can handle the Daleks any day. Although it is their fault I was ever separated from you," she conceded, letting out a long sigh. She ignored the shiver she felt every time someone mentioned the name.

"Are there Daleks in your universe?" the Doctor asked suddenly. Rose smiled, always her protector.

"We haven't come across any," she told him. "But Mickey and Jake have got an after hours project inventing anti-Dalek guns anyway."

"How?"

"You told them what Dalek battle armour was made of apparently."

"Oh yes, I suppose I did," the Doctor conceded. He seemed happy that they were at least considering the possible danger Daleks could pose in her universe. Her universe, she thought, yeah right.

For a little while they just sat, fingers entwined, and the Doctor gently stroked the back of Rose's hand with his thumb. Then Rose gave herself a mental shake and slowly sat herself upright.

"What now?" she asked.

"I um… I really don't know," the Doctor said truthfully.

"I need to know my options," Rose told him matter-of-factly. "Any further ideas how I got here?" She for one, had none. An icy trickle of fear slid down her spine as she wondered whether she could be taken away again just as easily.

.-.-.-.

The Doctor slid off the chair and approached the console. This is what he needed, a good conundrum to sink his shiny teeth in to. He just hoped whatever the answer was, Rose would stay. He _dearly_ wanted her to stay. But he wouldn't tell her that, not yet. Five and a half years ago she'd told him she'd stay with him forever, no matter the cost. But five and a half years was a long time. He didn't want to burden her with his feelings when she had so much to work out for herself.

"Is it OK if I go and change?" she asked then. "Feel a bit stupid in this." He turned and regarded her for a moment. She was shifting from one foot to another, clutching at her dress, looking suddenly embarrassed. "It really is terrible isn't it," she was going on. "Can't think why I let mum talk me in to it."

"I think you look beautiful," he told her truthfully. She beamed at him. "Interesting that the 1980s are back in again though."

"Oi!" she swatted his arm as she swished past. "I won't be a minute," she told him.

"Room's right where you left it," he told her and she flashed him one of her trademark grins over her shoulder.

Once she had disappeared through the console room door the Doctor staggered forward and planted his hands firmly on the console before him. He leant over it heavily and looked for all the world like he might throw up at any second. A gentle surge of energy through his palms warned him that that wouldn't be welcome at all.

He stared up at the time rotor and watched it chug up and down rhythmically for a moment. The ship was resting in the vortex, the engines a mere whisper. He thought of them straining minutes before. Burning up a sun to say goodbye. Hang on a minute. Rose's appearance had to be something to do with the immense energy he had been channelling to send the original projection. The gap was minute, only his image could get through and yet, for a moment he was linked with that world. What if? What if somehow the gap had existed not just between space and space but between the timelines as well? What if Rose had fallen through the gap from her future in the second before it closed? The Doctor scratched his head. He wasn't even sure that was possible. But how many times had he been proven wrong on that basis lately. No, it didn't make sense, the gap wasn't big enough. He shook his head. Unless, in her future the gap was bigger again. If something else had opened it up and that allowed her to fall through.

"All speculation," he mumbled, stroking the nearest smooth panel he could find on the console. Besides, why _would_ she fall? The Tardis hummed. _Is that a smugness I detect?_ the Doctor wondered. Definitely, it was palpable now. All around him, he could almost taste it.

_You did have a hand in this_. "Me, standing here, broken," he said out loud. "And Rose, standing there, suddenly realising that everything felt wrong." He shook his head.

"You and her still have some kind of connection?" he asked suddenly, his head filled with memories of golden light and a wolf's song. The Tardis thrummed with her love for Rose and the Doctor had found his answer.

"Nah," he grinned, staring at the console in wonder. "I've seen you do some stuff in my time, but this?!" He leapt back from the console with a rush of excitement and performed a full 360 degrees twirl, only to be faced with Rose, standing there looking like _his_ Rose once again.

"That was quick," he squeaked, surprised and somewhat embarrassed at how his voice sounded.

She was dressed in her jeans and that blue T-shirt she wore when they met Reinette. They were slightly baggy on her, the waistband of her jeans sagging slightly low, despite being cinched in by her belt, the bottoms of her jeans half smothering her trainers. Her shorter hair was wispy at the front and framed her face. Her slimmer cheeks made her eyes look even bigger than they had before, if that was possible. She smiled curiously.

"Got an idea how this happened then?" she asked.

"It's an educated guess at best, the readings in here are scrambled," he explained, waving at the console, not able to take his eyes of her.

"One of your guesses is usually better than most people's definites," she assured him. "Tell me."

"You look very -" the Doctor began. How was it you said things like this to women without causing offence? "Fit," he decided on.

Rose laughed. "Yeah well, running for my life with you on a daily basis was nothing compared to the Torchwood training programmes," she told him.

"You still work for them then?"

"I do," she said slowly, looking as if she was trying to figure out whether or not to tell him something. "Actually Dad and I kinda run things in London. It's not the same as it was in our world though," she said quickly, "that old regime was overthrown before I came along."

The Doctor nodded, he remembered Jake explaining this to him. After all, that had happened just a day or so ago for him. He'd spent the intervening time chasing the cracks across the world, searching desperately for one big enough to get her back. When he realised that wasn't going to be possible he settled instead for one final goodbye. He hesitated, right before he called to her. He didn't want to make things worse for her. But he couldn't resist – he had to see her again, even if they couldn't really be together. He wondered if he had made things worse. Perhaps he'd ask her later. First things first.

"Have you been trying to reopen the rift?" he asked. Rose's face fell, a dark cloud across her features all of a sudden.

"Why do you ask?" she said carefully.

"I'm thinking that you fell through time from your future when I used the crack in dimensions that allowed us to speak on the beach."

"Okay," she said slowly, mind obviously working on the implications of that. "But the crack was tiny. You said it yourself you couldn't come through properly or it would shatter and both worlds would collapse."

"Yes, and that puzzled me too but I think the Tardis had something to do with it."

Rose gazed up at the time rotor, slowly moving up and down before them.

"She pulled me through?"

"I think so," he confirmed. "But that only makes, well, _some_ sense if the crack was bigger in your future."

Rose was quiet for a long time and when she turned to him her look was grim.

"Dad and I found out that someone at work had been experimenting with what was left of the cracks. The scars they called them." The Doctor nodded. "The strongest was over Norway. I always assumed that was because you boosted it somehow when we said goodbye. Took me about a week to get over it when we travelled out there again. Brought back so many memories -" she tailed off, looking wistful again. "Anyway," she brightened, "those responsible were dealt with."

The Doctor looked worried. "They were sacked," she elaborated. He looked relieved and she gave a quick laugh. "I thought we'd sorted it."

"Wasn't there a part of you that was tempted?" he asked quietly.

She shot him a look full of pain. "Of course!" she told him. "A possible way back to you? Of course I was tempted." The Doctor was thrilled, despite her obvious hurt. "But I wasn't selfish enough to risk the destruction of two worlds just to get back to the man I -" she stopped herself suddenly and the Doctor was sure she blushed, although it was hard to tell in the green glow from the console.

"What?" he asked softly.

"Anyway," she smiled and turned away from him to study the console intently, hoping to hide her red cheeks, "seems like they must have kept on with their experiments somehow… If that's what enabled me to get here."

"You could be right," the Doctor agreed.

"So can I get back?" she asked suddenly, and it hit him like a punch in the guts. He couldn't speak for a moment, the wind knocked out of him, and when he did his voice came out a bit strangled.

"Do you want to?"

Rose didn't say anything for a moment, she just settled herself in the chair behind them and ran her hands over her face.

"Right now?" she said eventually. "No."

The Doctor let out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding. He joined her on the seat.

"And later?" he asked.

"I don't know. I guess you don't realise what you've got 'til it's gone?"

"You said nothing felt real there?" he asked carefully, reaching out as he did so and gently placing his hand on top of hers.

"Some things do," she told him. "Mum, Jonny. That's my brother, he's four. So cute. Mickey. He's the only one there who understands what I lost, and without him I doubt I'd be sitting here today." The Doctor looked faintly horrified at the implications of that but kept quiet as she went on. "Dad too really. That was unfair before, he tries so hard bless him," she smiled tiredly.

"You haven't mentioned Luke," he told her, realising he was over-pronouncing the man's name again. She looked stunned. "Sorry. I just, it feels very strange. There's this whole new person in your life." he looked away. Pull yourself together man! Since when did he get hung up on such things? He had a good idea what his previous incarnation would have had to say about thoughts like that. Something along the lines of, 'We don't do domestic remember?' Then again he'd also have said, 'I'd have never got her trapped in another universe you moron,' so what did he know.

"I'm sorry," Rose was saying. "I suppose this must be weird for you. It's weird enough for me. I can't explain what I'm feeling about him right now. It's like, everyone loved him and mum was so thrilled that I'd finally got over you," she stood up and began to pace back and forth. Her trainers sounded on the metal grill beneath her feet.

Got over me? Implying she was… what? Of course she'd told him she loved him on the beach and he'd been about to say it back, hadn't he? But what kind of love was it? Their relationship had always been pretty undefined and all encompassing. Best friend, companion, saviour. Love of his life? He rolled the thought around his head for a moment, seeing how it felt. Then he fidgeted in his seat like a little boy, willing her to continue.

"He was the first bloke that's asked me out since -" she tailed off and he nodded silently. "Well not the first first, but the first to have half a brain." The Doctor smirked. "He _is_ a lovely guy," she conceded thoughtfully, leaning gently against the console. It fizzed slightly. "Sorry," Rose apologised, moving away and stroking a panel a moment.

"And now?" the Doctor asked, but she cut him off.

"Why'd she do it?" she asked.

"What?"

"The Tardis," Rose continued, turning to gaze up at the time rotor again. "Why'd she pull me through?"

"Oh it's been a long time since I've tried to work out everything she does," the Doctor said fondly, gazing up at his beautiful ship, his bottom lip jutting out slightly. "Perhaps you two still have a link since -" he didn't finish, but Rose nodded her understanding. "As for why she did it, I don't know. But I was very miserable, and she does have a habit of getting inside my head, trying to help me out."

Rose stared. "Did you wish it?" she asked. "Do it on purpose?" Her eyes narrowed.

The Doctor threw his hands up, the universal gesture for 'Not me!' Then he grabbed Rose's hand tightly and told her firmly, "No, I didn't."

"You snatched me away!" Rose looked confused at her own words the moment she'd said them, like she hadn't meant them to be what they were.

"Rose, I'm a Time Lord, not a sorceror," the Doctor told her. "I didn't _do_ anything. Not that I wouldn't have if I'd known it was possible," he mumbled.

Rose gazed at him, her expression softening.

"Of course you didn't," she shook her head and laughed at her own stupidity. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too," he said.

"Why?"

"I don't know." They giggled and she sat back down beside him.

"So now what?" she asked. "_Could_ you send me back?" She asked this in a speculative tone, as though it wasn't an entirely serious question, and the Doctor felt partially relieved.

He stood and examined the console for a moment, trying to make some sense of the readouts on the monitor. It was all a bit of a mess.

"Seems like the immense power she's been channelling has scrambled everything a bit. It might take me some time to figure it out."

"OK," Rose mused. "Do we have to stay here or could we go somewhere else whilst you work it out?"

"Um, we could," he agreed. "You choose. Where shall we go?"

How many times had he asked her that, he wondered.

.-.-.-.

It was only natural she'd choose the Powell Estate. It had been over five years since she'd stepped foot in her mum's old flat. She had some reminiscing to do. Besides, she told him, she'd left all her washing there.

So the Doctor poured over the information the Tardis was giving him and the doors stood slightly ajar, so he could gaze out over Jackie's living room should he so wish. Rose was wandering about the flat. After a while she became more industrious, collecting up photographs and precious bits and bobs she'd thought she'd never see again and putting them in bags. It felt good to be doing something, anything… To take her mind off everything else.

Later she appeared in the Tardis doorway with two cups of tea.

"It's hardly been any time since we left," she told him. "Milk's still fresh."

"I know," the Doctor told her. "We were here three days ago, relatively."

"Oh."

"Feel odd?" he asked.

"Very."

"I know."

"Still keep thinking I'm gonna wake up and this'll all be some kind of dream," she admitted.

She had to stop dwelling on this, or she was going to cry. Why did the Doctor have to suddenly turn in to some kind of wonder-counsellor, letting her rabbit on. That wasn't his usual style. He was 'always alright' and although he'd always given her space to be all emotional and human when she'd needed it, he'd never really sat and talked something through with her before. She wondered what had brought about this change in him, and then she realised. Losing her. She also realised he was speaking to her.

"I hope not," he was telling her seriously.

"What?" she asked, gasping as one of the mugs slipped and burnt the knuckle of one finger.

"A dream," the Doctor explained. "I hope it's not a dream"

"Oh," she said, shifting the cup. "Me too." She handed him his tea and he took a sip. "Remembered how you have it," she said proudly and he grinned.

"So I thought you came back and found out we were on the lists of the dead and all that," Rose asked, settling in the chair and watching him work, as she had so many times before.

Everything felt so familiar. She hadn't realised before that when she missed the Tardis she even missed the smell of it. Industrial and ancient, oil, electricity, steel. And something else, unique and organic. A bit like the smell of moss underfoot in a wood, or rust. Or both. She wasn't sure, she just knew it smelt like home.

"Got access to all the records I need here," the Doctor told her. "As soon as the event had happened, you turned up on the lists."

"Of course," Rose said, shaking her head slightly. She'd forgotten everything the Tardis was capable of. She gazed at the central console, the lights swimming before eyes that were determined not to stay dry. Could this amazing ship really be home again?

.-.-.-.

Later on the Doctor found her in her room aboard the Tardis, sorting through her clothes and picking out those not too big for her.

"Making yourself at home?" he asked, amused, ignoring the swell of hope in his gut.

Rose gazed around at the clothes she had strewn everywhere, a look of confusion on her face. She shrugged.

"Something to do?" she said weakly. Then she put down the pair of jeans she was holding and sighed.

"It's funny," she told him. "None of this seems that out of fashion. I think we're a bit behind the times in Pete's world."

"You still call it that?" He laughed, remembering christening it that days before.

Rose shrugged. "Doesn't seem like my world. Everything's just slightly… wrong. Even the air."

She jumped up suddenly, her eyes bright, and ran from the room and down the corridor. The Doctor followed close behind, calling her name in concern. Once she reached the console room, she pounded down the ramp and out the doors to fling open one of the windows in the flat. She took in a lungful of south-east London smog and sighed happily.

"Lovely!" she cried and the Doctor chuckled, from his position by the console. She stood, lit by the weak sunlight coming through Jackie's terrible net curtains. The Doctor thought, not for the first time that day, that she looked beautiful.

Then she came back through and stood before him smiling ear to ear. "Can I have a hug?" she asked suddenly.

"Of course," he told her, holding open his arms. She stepped in to his embrace and tilted her head back, resting her chin on his shoulder. The Doctor leaned back on the console and squeezed her tight.

"I've missed this," she mumbled.

"Me too," he agreed.

"I've only been gone a few days," she laughed, pulling away.

"Still," he said, shrugging. She gave him a little smile. "So anyway," he said, turning to the console. "I came to find you to say I'd finished working it all out and -"

"Wait!" she cried suddenly, holding up her hand to stop him.

"What?"

"Before you tell me, if it's possible for me to get back, I need to know something," she told him, and he nodded solemnly.

"Okay."

"What do _you _want?" she asked simply.

The Doctor gazed at her for a moment and then raked a hand through his wayward hair. This caused Rose to smile weakly at the, as usual, utterly futile gesture. He let out a long sigh and wandered over to the console chair, using the time to formulate a decent answer. Rose tilted her head to one side and watched him thoughtfully, as though she could tell just by watching his body language what he might say.

"That's a biggie," he said finally and she smirked, before joining him on the seat.

"Well, it may be, but I need to know where we stand before you tell me I'm trapped here forever. I want decisions to be made truthfully."

"Fair enough," the Doctor replied casually, but inside his hearts were thundering, his mind was spinning and he wasn't sure where he'd begin. Rose watched him struggle for a moment before scowling.

"If it's that difficult -"she began, but he cut her off.

"When you fell, towards the void," he started, stunning her in to silence. "I can't describe how I felt." He reached out and grabbed her hand, needing the contact to confirm she was in fact real. "I thought you were brave and stupid for grabbing that lever. And I thought you were going to die." Rose gave a tremulous little smile.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Sorry for saving the world, or sorry for not dying?" he asked, slightly sarcastically.

"Sorry for making you hurt!"

The Doctor held her gaze for a moment. "Anyway, afterwards I chased the cracks across the world. The one above Norway was the biggest one I could find but it still wasn't big enough to -" He went quiet.

"To what?" she asked.

"Get you back," he told her. "I didn't want to say goodbye Rose, I wanted you back."

Rose looked stunned.

"That hasn't changed," he told her softly, reaching out to tuck an errant strand of hair behind her ear. He thought the shorter hair suited her, now he was getting used to it. "So there's your answer. I want you to stay." Rose smiled and nodded quickly, but she looked like she might cry.

"I know it's selfish," he added. "And it's much harder for you. You've, 'moved on'." He said the words like they tasted bad and Rose shook her head. "Haven't you?" he asked. "Your turn to make the choice," he added.

Rose's eyes met his then and there was such emotion there, that he felt a panic rising like an ocean swell within him. "I wasn't sure about the beach," he said suddenly, sensing that the current course of their conversation might be leading somewhere dangerously intimate.

"What do you mean?" she asked, blinking back tears.

"Once I knew I couldn't get you back I wanted to have a chance to say goodbye, but I didn't know if it would help you or make it worse. Didn't know how much time would have passed for you, if you'd have got on with stuff and I'd come along and open old wounds."

"But you came anyway."

"Selfish of me," he decided.

"No," Rose said, quite fiercely. "I needed it too. Besides, on current theory I wouldn't be here now if you hadn't would I?" she squeezed his hand and the Doctor looked down at their fingers linked together. He thought of every single time he'd taken her hand.

"We had a laugh didn't we?" he asked, as if giving her a get out to say, 'Yes, but that's all over now.' He smiled, but Rose looked pained.

"I often thought, afterwards," she began, dropping her other hand lightly on his forearm, but not being able to meet his gaze, "that it was our fault somehow."

"How d'you mean?" he asked, shifting uncomfortably, watching her pick at invisible lint on his suit.

"Like, it was payback," she said seriously and now she did look up, and her eyes were dark.

"Payback?" he asked, faintly horrified.

"We were so sure of ourselves."

"Oh." He nodded now, he knew where she was going with this. He'd thought it himself. He'd been stood pressed to a stone-cold wall at the time, desperate to feel a trace of her warmth still there.

"And foolish," she added.

"Rash even," he agreed.

"Sorta', cocky."

"Quite possibly."

"We acted like -" Rose began.

"Like the whole of time and space was our playground," the Doctor said matter-of-factly.

"We can't make that mistake again," she told him firmly.

"No," he said and then a smile began to tug at the corner of his mouth. "Does that mean you've made your decision?" he asked, hope soaring. She returned his burgeoning smile with one of her own.

"Looks that way, doesn't it Doctor?"

He gave her a smile, which turned in to one of his best and widest grins and she returned the same, even going so far as to flick her tongue between her teeth for a moment. The Doctor faintly registered that he was glad she still did that. He pulled her in for a hug.

"You're sure?" he asked sensibly a few moments later, letting her go.

"Sure," Rose said, but she gave a shaky sigh and he frowned, a question posed with one raised eyebrow. "Really," she assured him. "Just a lot to leave behind."

"I know," he told her, squeezing her hand again.

"So," Rose started, brightening perceptibly. "Truth time, could you have sent me back?"

"No," the Doctor told her, face grave despite the fact that she'd decided to stay anyway. Rose gazed at the console.

"Whatever she did," the Doctor began, gesturing to the centre of his ship, "the trace _is _there, it's somewhat scrambled but I did find it. Only there's no way to reverse the process. It's proved impossible to figure out, even for me."

Rose listened to his little speech with a faraway look in her eyes.

"You really tried didn't you?" she asked.

"Of course," the Doctor told her.

"You could have just said, 'Sorry! Can't be done.' And I'd have been none the wiser."

"Not my style," he assured her.

"I know," she told him. "It's what I love about you."

Silence descended and Rose looked awkward. The Doctor shifted his gaze away from her big brown eyes and out instead in to Jackie's living room.

"It's OK," Rose said quietly a moment later. "I'm not expecting anything. Just because I… just because of what I said, on the beach. I'm not expecting anything to change between us. I mean I was desperate, we were never going to see each other again. And I don't need to hear what you were going to say either," she told him, when he finally had the courage to look her way again. "I'm not a kid anymore."

She stood to leave then, but he stood quickly, making her stop and turn to him.

"You were never a kid," he told her, voice a little desperate. She just stared up at him. God, now what did he say? "There is something we can do," he added quickly, before she had a chance to respond.

"What?" she asked flatly, disappointed that he'd changed the topic.

"We could send a message. Like before, on the beach. If I'm extremely clever, we could go talk to your mum. And Luke, if you'd like."

"Before you came out in Norway. Would it have to be Norway?"

"Um, possibly not, now I know when the breach is opened on your side I might be able to swing it that we can appear just after you left."

"At the church?" Rose looked horrified.

"I, um -" the Doctor began.

"Crash my own wedding?" Rose asked. The Doctor shrugged. "OK," Rose agreed. "Why not? When?"

"Not yet I need to calculate everything first – never mind finding another supernova to power the thing."

"Is that possible? I don't want to put us in danger."

"It's possible. But afterwards we need to sort out these cracks once and for all. They'll be well and truly sealed, can't risk anything like last time happening again. This'll be your last chance, to say goodbye."

"Oh, okay." Rose smiled tightly and made to leave again. The Doctor grabbed her by the arm this time, clinging on tight. As she stared at him again, he wondered what the hell he was doing. And then he wondered why he couldn't just let go. Tell Rose how he felt. He frowned, his head was spinning again.

"Have you… got everything, you need I mean. I want to go somewhere else," he told her, chickening out. Inwardly cursing himself. You arrogant old fool.

"Yeah," she said lightly, "fine. I'm going for a lie down."

"Okay," he said gently, letting her go, intensely aware as each of his fingers slipped from the soft skin of her arm.

He watched her walk from the room and sighed, turning to gaze up at his ship.

_Go on, go on, go on._

"Give me a break will you?" he muttered, beginning to plot a new course. "It's not as easy as that."

_Isn't it?_


	3. Happily Ever After

**Once again, thanks for all your lovely reviews. This is the last chapter, though there will be an Epilogue posted shortly. Hopefully this will please all you 10/Rose addicts out there... Enjoy!**

**Chapter 3 – Happily Ever After**

Where the Doctor wanted to go was back in to the vortex. It was easier to make the calculations for sending the message if the ship was here. She was better able to connect with the timelines and they were safe from any of Jackie's relatives who might come knocking, wondering where she'd got to.

The Doctor scratched his head and punched buttons thoughtfully. This was taking longer than he'd expected. It had been three hours since Rose had gone for a lie down and the ship was only a quarter of a way through her working out.

_Are you being slow on purpose?_

There was a change in the lighting that only he would notice.

_I'm not sending her back_.

"No chance," he muttered. He tried to push a mental image of reassurance and felt the atmosphere lighten somewhat in the control room.

"I'm off to find her," he said aloud. "Get on with it will ya?"

Wandering the corridors in search of Rose, the Doctor began reflecting on everything that had happened. A few hours ago he thought he was saying goodbye to her forever, and now here he was, going to find her on his ship. She was here and she was safe, with him. Halfway down what he hoped was the second to last corridor (the Tardis did seem to making this difficult today) he stopped suddenly and leant back against the bronzed metal wall.

He let out a weary sigh. He felt he was in uncharted territory.

Honesty time. Ever since he'd met Rose he'd been falling for her. By the time they'd faced the Dalek in Van Statten's bunker it was full-blown love. The Doctor had held back for all the usual reasons. He needed to keep such lowly, human emotions at arms length. He needed to keep everything buried deep down. He held too much in the balance to give in to his own selfish needs. Couldn't afford to attempt that juggle. The fate of the universe so often in one hand and his own, private wants in the other. It _was _partly about beingselfish though. It was also his protection. Avoiding the ultimate curse of the Time Lord. Doomed to carry on alone, out living anyone he cared about.

Humans, they withered and they died. He couldn't lie. If he hadn't thought he was seeing Rose for the last time, there was no way he would have told her he loved her. Not that he'd quite managed it. But, he knew, he was going to. He'd wanted her to know in that moment. Couldn't bear the thought of her living on in the parallel world, not knowing that he felt the same about her. And oh, he did.

But she knew anyway, didn't she? How could she _not_ know?

She did. And he knew she knew and yet, he had to say it. He had to bloody go and say it. Because he was never ever going to see her again.

Never say never ever, hadn't he once told her that? Not that long ago either, by his watch. He should have thought he might find a way back to her again one day, and been more careful not to… Not to what? The Doctor frowned. Not to let her know that he thought her the most incredible, fantastic woman he'd ever known? That she'd saved him from himself when he'd been broken? That he'd died for her and would do it again in a heartbeat? That he was hopelessly in love with her? Hopeless because no matter how he felt, he had greater things to consider than his emotions. Hopeless because he'd live nigh-on forever and she'd live the equivalent of one of his seconds.

Except now she was here, and everything was out the metaphorical window.

Now she'd told him and she knew that he'd been about to tell her. All the old, time honoured excuses had fallen away with her the moment her fingers slipped on that lever. When he'd screamed her name, certain she was going to die, and when he'd spent days searching for a way to get her back. Then he'd stood in the Tardis and watched her cry in Bad Wolf Bay and he'd realised, nothing else mattered but telling her how he felt.

So now what?

_Why do you deny yourselves?_

The Doctor dragged his gaze from where it was fixed somewhere in the middle distance and raised it up to the lights softly illuminating the corridor, as if there he could address his ship. She spoke in his mind not exactly in words, but in notions. Pulses of telepathic energy which he could translate as easily as she did any alien languages he came across.

"Good question," the Doctor muttered. Had he been wrong, thinking it was an either or situation? Rose or the universe?

He let his head drop, his hands sliding up and over his face. He pressed with his palms until flashing colours exploded behind his eyeballs. They slowly coalesced, forming the image of a face before him. Rose. He snapped his head up and opened his eyes. The image of her remained, like when you look too long at a light bulb.

Yes, he'd been wrong. Not an easy thing to admit that. Though perhaps this bitter pill was easier to swallow if he considered what the outcome of his honesty might be. If he told Rose he loved her…

The Doctor bit back a stupid grin and hid his face in his hands again. A fascinating mixture of excitement and acute nerves swelled within him. This was definitely uncharted territory. Relationships on Gallifrey, well, they were something else entirely. He felt like a teenager.

"Butterflies is a good word for it," he told the empty corridor, resting a hand on his stomach. "Feels like there's a million of the blighters in here."

He took a deep, calming breath and straightened his tie.

"Okay," he said slowly, impressed when his voice only wavered slightly. He made to walk on to Rose's room but stopped and turned to the wall instead, thumping his head gently against it.

"You're all over the place," he told himself. "Can't go and talk to her like this, time only knows what you'll come out with."

He stood with his forehead pressed to the cold metal until his panic had subsided a little. He hadn't a clue how to go about this. He liked to consider himself self-assured and devil-may-care about this sort of thing. That was before it mattered more than anything else in the universe though.

"What do I say?" he wondered out loud.

Once again the Tardis new what was good for him.

_The truth. _

.-.-.-.

Rose had been lying on her back staring at the ceiling when the Doctor came to her door. She'd slept fitfully for not more than a couple of hours and spent the time since in utter turmoil. Several emotions were jostling for position within her. She was over the moon to be back with the Doctor, yet this was tempered with sadness at the loss of her family. First up though there was a great big slab of guilt to deal with. And number one on the current guilt list was Luke. She'd been stringing him along without even realising it. She'd been so convinced that she'd finally put her life with the Doctor behind her and was getting on with the fantastic one he'd want for her, she'd got swept off her feet. There went strong, independent, grown up Rose Tyler. Seen so much and done so much, wasn't she great. Of course this lovely man wanted her. Who wouldn't? Great big fussy wedding, why not? The Doctor always said she was the best. She deserved it. That's what fantastic meant wasn't it? Great job, lots of friends, loving husband and family?

Lying on her bunk, back in the Tardis, Rose shuddered. What the hell had she been thinking? God only knows what would have become of her and Luke if she'd gone through with it. Would she really have condemned the pair of them to living a lie? She wondered briefly if Luke suspected the truth. She couldn't blame him if he didn't though, she'd done a pretty good job of convincing everyone else. Even herself.

Truth was she did love Luke, as a friend. Kind of the same way she loved Mickey. Once upon a time she'd thought Mickey was The One. That's before she had any clue how love really felt. For her, love didn't come in the shape of soft-hearted boys like Luke and Mickey. It didn't come complete with a big church wedding, honeymoon in Tenerife and lifetime subscription to Perfect Marriage magazine. It was much more exciting and thrilling than that. About as far away from normal as you could get. Love had taken her hand and led her across the stars. It walked with her through ancient markets and under frozen waves. It left it's footprints in the dust of alien worlds, side-by-side with her own. It was under her skin and in her heart. And it came with it's very own time machine.

Rose turned and buried her face in her pillow. She squealed with excitement and bit so hard on the fabric of the pillow case that she tore a whole. Then she sat up and watched amazed as the hole stitched itself back together. She couldn't believe she'd once taken that sort of thing for granted. She couldn't believe she was really there, back in the Tardis and back with the only man she'd ever really loved.

Loved. That sounded wrong, because it wasn't a love that had passed. It wasn't something she'd got over. Who could? She flopped back down on her back, a stupidly massive grin on her face.

She loved him. She'd never stopped, and now… She was back with him. She slapped her hands over her face suddenly and groaned.

"I told him!" And he'd nearly told her. She knew he loved her. They knew that about each other but they'd never had to give it voice. She knew he'd never do anything about it. How could he when he had far greater things than her to worry about on a daily basis. She'd been content to be that way with him forever. They each took the scraps of affection they'd thrown each other (otherwise known as near-constant hand holding and what Mickey had one time complained was a stupid need to hug at every available opportunity). Theirs wasn't a conventional love affair, but the rules of conventionality were out the door when you spent any time with the Doctor.

Now Rose feared she'd ruined everything. The delicate balance was upset. She'd seen that when she mentioned the beach before and the Doctor blustered his way around the subject. She groaned again and reached behind her head for the pillow, hiding her head beneath it. What if things could never be the same between them? The thought terrified her.

It was at this point that the Doctor knocked on her door. Actually, pounded was a better word. Rose's Torchwood-honed instincts took over and she leapt up. She flung the door open to find him standing there, grinning like the fool she knew he was. She grinned back. They always were infectious, his smiles. Besides, it hid her panic.

"What?" she asked eventually.

"Rose Tyler," he replied, his face suddenly serious. It reminded her so much of that moment on the beach, when he'd said the same thing. Oh God.

"I was asleep," she said quickly, and a little too forcibly. No way.

"Y – you were?" the Doctor stammered, suddenly feeling foolish.

"Yes, but it doesn't matter," Rose said brightly. "What's up?" she breezed past him and started back the way he'd come.

Once she was sure he couldn't see her face, she shut her eyes briefly and let out a long breath. She was sure he was about to finish his sentence from his goodbye, but it felt too ridiculous to think about what that might mean and so she turned and grinned at him instead. He was standing in the doorway where she'd left him, looking dejected. She felt a sudden rush of love and protectiveness towards him. He looked like a little boy lost. Despite her better judgement, she walked back and stood before him, holding her arms out for a hug. He gave her a little smile and accepted her embrace, wrapping his arms around her waist so she had to wrap hers around his neck. She felt the tension in his shoulders relax and gave him a squeeze. She was telling herself that she must have been imagining things and there was no possible way he was going to say what she'd thought, when she noticed the Doctor had slowly let the fingers of his right hand slip beneath her t-shirt. To her surprise he then began to gently stroke the soft skin of her lower back. Trying to contain a shiver of pleasure, she reluctantly pulled away and took hold of the same hand. His fighting hand, as it happened.

"Come on," she told him, fighting hopelessly the blush that was rising on her face. "Come and tell me where you're up to."

The Doctor followed after her, looking for all the world like a naughty school boy.

.-.-.-.

He was at once relieved and disappointed that Rose had stopped him. He couldn't work out if she'd guessed what he was going to say, but if she had, perhaps this wasn't the right time for her. Perhaps she still needed to sort things out in her head about Luke. Perhaps, he wondered despondently, she just didn't love him anymore. Arrogantly he quickly pushed that thought aside as impossible and grinned wolfishly.

"What's up with you?" Rose asked, when she caught sight of it, working on a smile of her own. He shook his head but went on grinning, and didn't stop all the way to the console room.

"She's halfway there," he announced, when they arrived. "We'll soon have to start looking for another exploded star."

"I suppose I'd better start thinking about what I'm going to say," Rose mused, looking worried.

"I wish I could help," the Doctor offered, settling in to their usual seat. "I'm no good at goodbyes."

"You're not so bad," Rose assured him and he felt himself blush with pleasure. He tried to hide it by pretending he'd sat on something and making a fuss of finding it, hoping the hair flopping down over his face would provide a shield. She sat down beside him heavily. "I am _so _not looking forward to this."

"We don't have to, if it's too much. Or, we could go another time," the Doctor told her, ending his search for the pretend thing he'd sat on.

"No," Rose said, shaking her head. "It has to be now or I'll never do it... and I have to do it. Mum'd kill me if I didn't." The Doctor gave an exaggerated shudder at the thought of Jackie on the war path. Rose laughed. "You wouldn't believe it," she told him. "But she's your biggest fan these days. All she raves about is how you gave her back her Pete and kept us all safe."

The Doctor was genuinely touched, but then he frowned.

"Guess that's going to change," he told her. "Once she realises I've snatched you back, normal service will resume."

Rose chuckled. "I can't help thinking," she told him, "that you may just be right."

They sat in silence for a moment. The Doctor wondered if Rose was thinking again of what she was losing. Rose wondered whether the Doctor was thinking about her.

"Now what?" she asked finally.

"Well, we have some time to kill, but if we go anywhere it'll take even longer."

"We're stuck here for a bit?"

"Yes."

The Doctor watched her for a moment. She was gazing across at the console, the lights of which lit her face with alternating flashes of green and gold.

"Rose," he began, thinking perhaps now was the right time to say what he wanted to.

"What?" she asked suddenly, shooting him a fearful look.

"Tell me about your life," he said instead, his hearts plummeting to his shoes, wondering if there would ever be a time when he could say it. She looked relieved. Yes, definitely _not _the right time.

"What do you want to know?" she asked, leaning back in the chair and tucking her legs up in front of her. Her heart hammered. She found she couldn't meet the Doctor's eye.

"I don't know… What's it like working for Torchwood?"

"Like being with you, a lot of the time," she told him and smiled ruefully. "Not the paperwork though." The Doctor smirked. "Can't quite imagine you sitting me down at the end of one of our adventures and giving it, 'Right Rose, a full report on the Sycorax invasion on my desk by noon!'" They grinned. Rose's eyes flashed.

"But when it's exciting, and we're fighting something, stopping something or helping someone… then it's something like being with you." The Doctor grinned some more. "Having that kind of excitement in my life got me through a lot of stuff," Rose went on. "Can't imagine how much worse it would have been if I'd had to go back to a _completely_ normal life. Certainly wasn't that. Far from it. If you'd told me all that time ago, just before we met, that I'd be doing all that… 'defending the earth' I'd have said you were mental."

"Bet you sometimes wished you'd never met me," the Doctor said, without thinking.

Rose looked shocked. "You must be joking," she told him. "I'd never swap any of it." He raised an eyebrow. "Even losing you," she told him. "Even losing them now. Not for the world."

The Doctor smiled, relieved and faintly awestruck. Was there nothing this girl couldn't handle?

"So, how old are you now, exactly?" he asked suddenly.

"Don't you know?"

"Well, I guess you must be, give or take, 26?"

"Yeah, but why's that important all of a sudden?"

"It isn't," the Doctor told her. "I'm just trying to get a picture of your life."

Rose nodded, satisfied. "It's one thing I was grateful of, being there. I didn't have to keep up with that whole, I'm really a year younger thing, after we came back -"

"12 months later instead of 12 hours, I know. That did get confusing!" he agreed. They shared a laugh.

"I didn't think mum was ever going to forgive you for that," Rose told him.

"Me neither, can still feel the slap despite my regeneration," he told her, rubbing his cheek. "Mind you, that might have been preferable to her more recent treatment of me. Last time we turned up she kissed me! _Kissed _me!" He laughed, but Rose was looking sad.

"That was the last time we came back, before -" she began.

"Yes, I suppose it was."

It was weird, how that happened for him just days ago and for her years. He of all people should be used to that, but it was how she remembered everything so clearly. He guessed that day was burnt in to her memory, he was sure it was in to his. It was hard to comprehend that she had been dealing with it for all that time.

"That day was unbelievable," she told him, sinking further back in the chair. "Everything happened so quickly and then suddenly, you were gone." She looked at him. "Or, I was." He nodded.

"Afterwards," she said, looking down at her hands, fiddling with the edge of her t-shirt. "I was convinced for the longest time you'd be back. I know you said I couldn't see you again, but I couldn't help thinking that you'd been wrong before." The Doctor gazed at her, feeling every ounce of her pain for himself. "I'd be there at work, doing something 'brave', or even just at home, doing the washing up and I'd think 'Any minute now, I'll hear him… hear the Tardis and he'll be here.'"

"I'm sorry."

"I was deluding myself," Rose replied, shaking her head. "In the end I knew I was stuck there. I tried to make the best of it, do like you'd said before, have a good life."

"Good for you," he told her with a proud smile, eyes crinkling at the edges.

Rose shook her head. "Didn't work," she said and laughed sharply. "It's official, I was crap at having a fantastic life."

"Oh, I doubt that's true," the Doctor told her fondly. "I bet your colleagues at work would tell me different."

"You can ask them in a bit," Rose smirked, but her eyes betrayed her fear and sadness.

"Come here," the Doctor told her, holding his arm out.

"Don't," she protested, as he pulled her against him for a hug. "I'll cry."

"What's wrong with that?" he asked her. "It'll do you good."

Tears began to fall as she reached around him and held on tight, nestling her head under his chin. "I dunno what's wrong with me!" she spluttered. "I should be happy! I _am_ happy. You're all I've wanted for as long as I can remember."

The Doctor's hand stilled where it had been rubbing her back in what he'd hoped was a soothing manner. He swallowed hard on the lump that had suddenly forced it's way up his throat. Now or never?

"Rose," he croaked, embarrassed when his voice failed him. She shuffled up so that she was still caught in his arms but could see his face. She'd never seen him look more serious.

"What, Doctor?" she asked in a small voice.

"Do you still?" he asked simply. She shook her head slightly and frowned, didn't know what he was asking of her. "Want me?" he clarified, watching her face for any sign of her true feelings.

And there it came, a full-on Rose Tyler patented, 100 watt smile. "Are you kidding?" she asked.

"No," he assured her, his voice firm. Important she knew that he meant it with all his… hearts.

"But," she began, pulling herself upright and out of his arms. "You don't… do that, do you?"

The Doctor felt vaguely embarrassed. "Well… I erm, I have been known," he blustered.

"All that domestic stuff, I mean," Rose clarified quickly, to save his blushes. She grinned though, sure sign she knew exactly what he was thinking about. "You don't do domestic."

"No," the Doctor agreed. "I don't. Don't do domestic. Don't do marriages or mortgages, picket fences or family trips to Ikea."

Rose smirked. "Me neither," she told him honestly. "Freaks me out."

"Clearly," he told her, referring to her earlier abandonment of her own wedding. They laughed and Rose reached for his hand.

"What are you saying then?" she asked.

The Doctor slid his palm across hers and let their fingers entwine before continuing.

"I'm saying, Rose Tyler, that I can't offer you all _that_."

"What I don't want anyway?"

"That's right. But I _can_ offer you this," he gestured about the console room with his free hand. "The Tardis and… me." He dropped his gaze then, feeling like he was a million fathoms out of his depth, yet ridiculously buoyant - on the verge of being the happiest he'd ever been. Rose seemed to be holding her breath.

He looked up then and added, solemnly, "For-your-ever."

For the longest time they just sat and stared in to each others eyes. When the Doctor finally broke the silence his face still held that serious look.

"Rose Tyler -"

He was interrupted by a sudden and incessant bleeping from the console. He turned his head and glared at it in disbelief before reluctantly rising and stalking across to the controls. Rose stayed put, shocked in to silence. After a while she gave herself a mental shake and joined him at the console.

"What's going on?" she asked, her voice surprisingly steady given the way she was feeling inside.

"The calculations are complete," the Doctor told her. "And she's found us a supernova." He gave the ship an odd look. Strange the way she'd suddenly sped everything up once he'd reassured her he wasn't planning on getting shot of Rose.

"So we can do it? Now? Send the message?" Rose asked, her voice betraying the sudden panic rising within her again.

"Yes, we can," the Doctor replied. Then he turned, grabbed her shoulders gently and said, "But first, I've got something I've been trying to say to you."

Rose smiled. It was half giddy joy, half blind panic and the Doctor could see that. It was much like what he was feeling himself. He grinned happily. He made an exaggerated gesture of looking about them for the next possible interruptee and then turned his attention back to her. She lost herself in his soft brown eyes and remembered that moment on the beach, when all she'd wanted was to hold him one last time.

"Rose Tyler," he said, and then stopped to look around once again. "No Daleks going to pop out from behind the console?" he called, making her laugh, all her panic forgotten. "No Gelth? Werewolves? Members of the Slitheen family? No Krillitane?" he asked, peering up at the rafters. Rose shook her head, laughing harder. "Right, well in the absence of any further interruptions," the Doctor said, suddenly serious again, causing Rose to catch her next laugh in her throat and gaze up at him.

And then he said it. "Rose Tyler… I love you."

And the 100 watt smile was back. Rose flicked her tongue between her teeth cheekily and grinned. "Quite right too," she told him and he laughed out loud.

He'd said it! She couldn't believe he'd finally said it. And it wasn't half a decade ago. And he wasn't just an image, returned to haunt her dreams. This time he was here and real and she was able to fling her arms about him and be spun around.

Setting her back on her feet the Doctor kept one hand resting at her side. The other, his right, he brought to her cheek, his fingers slipping gently in to her hair.

"May I?" he asked, bringing his face closer to hers, his intent clear.

Rose laughed gently. "You have to ask?"

"Technically," he said softly, his breath on her lips, "you are engaged to another man."

"Technically," Rose mimicked, her voice a low stage whisper, "I couldn't give a -"

She stopped there, because a smile tugged faintly at the corner of the Doctor's mouth and then… he kissed her.

Rose knew, as he held her and his lips met hers that _this_ was love, and it was everything she wanted and she had never, _ever _been kissed like this before.

And the Doctor knew that this was right. Oh, _so_ right. And how had he ever thought it could be wrong?

.-.-.-.

Jackie Tyler had grown accustomed to strange and unusual things happening in her life. Ever since Rose had gone missing for an entire year, and then turned up going on as if hardly any time had passed at all with a strange man in tow, life had been far less than normal. Nothing, however, had prepared her for being dragged outside the church her daughter was about to get married in, to be told that she had disappeared in to thin air.

"What do you mean she's disappeared in to thin air?" she shrieked. "Someone must have seen which way she went!"

"I mean, she literally disappeared," Pete told her, taking her by the shoulders. "Right in front of my eyes Jack! One minute she was here. The next -"

"It's the Trills," Mickey was telling Jake, the two of them looking uncomfortable in full dress suits, with cream cravats and carnation button holes. "I never should have let her talk me in to the peace agreement. Man, I _knew _they'd be planning something else."

Pete was glaring at him. He had no idea who or what it was that had taken Rose, but filling Jackie's head with thoughts of avenging alien races was not going to help. Mickey caught his eye and fell silent. Behind them Rose's husband-to-be Luke appeared in the doorway of the church, looking confused and holding Jonny's hand.

"Oh come here sweetheart," Jackie told her son, seeing his worried face. The four year old scuttled over to her and hid behind her fuchsia-pink dress.

"What's going on?" Luke asked, and his blue eyes flashed with panic. "Where's Rose?"

Everyone looked at each other, hoping someone else would be the one to tell him.

"Sweetheart -" Jackie began.

"I'm here."

The entire group turned and were stunned to find Rose standing before them, in the shade of the tall trees beside the church.

"Oh Rose!" Jackie wailed. "We've been looking everywhere for you!" She started towards her but then stopped, staring at her. "Where's your dress?" she asked.

"It's a long story," Rose said and smiled thinly, looking down at her jeans and t-shirt. She hadn't thought.

"Well you're here, that's the main thing," Jackie went on. "Dress or no dress there's still a wedding going on. Let's get everyone inside." She began to make shooing motions to move them through the door.

"No!" Rose said, suddenly forceful. "I'm not."

"Not what?" Luke asked, finding his voice at last, and pretty sure in his own mind what the lack of wedding dress might mean.

"Not here," Rose clarified, to which everyone looked confused.

"You disappeared, right in front of me," Pete told her.

She nodded. "Yeah, I did." Then she looked about, making sure there was no-one else in ear shot. Thankfully the rest of the guests had remained inside the church.

"What happened?" Pete asked.

"I fell," she explained. "Through time, um… and space, I guess."

"What do you mean you fell?" Jackie asked, her voice betraying her anguish. "Fell where?"

At this they all watched as Rose turned and smiled encouragingly at something invisible to her left. Then she reached out her hand and suddenly, standing there holding it, was the Doctor.

"You!" Jackie cried.

"Who's that?" Luke asked Mickey quietly.

"That's the Doctor!" Mickey told him, not quite able to hide the wonder on his face or in his voice.

Luke's face fell. He'd heard all about the Doctor. In the years before he and Rose had become an item, when he was just another colleague at work, he'd been a shoulder to cry on. As with the lack of dress, he had a growing suspicion what this all meant.

"Hello Jackie," the Doctor was saying. He smiled kindly. "Pete," he nodded. "Mickey. Jake." Each nodded in return.

"And this is Jonny," Rose told him. "My little brother." The Doctor smiled and Johnny looked scared, stepping further behind his mother's back. "And this is Luke," she went on. The Doctor met his gaze but said nothing.

"I'm _really _sorry babe," Rose told the man she had been about to marry. But before he had a chance to reply, Jackie interrupted.

"What's happening?" she near wailed.

"We're not sure," the Doctor began.

"Rose?!" she asked, one word conveying her hope that there was a solution to all this.

"Remember when the Doctor came to say goodbye?" Rose asked, and everyone who'd been present that day nodded slowly. "Well, it's like that now. We're just an image, like he was that day. I've one last chance to say goodbye." She looked Luke in the eye at that.

"Oh God," Jackie whimpered, her legs giving out beneath her. Pete grabbed at her arm quickly and kept her standing. "You've done this!" she screeched, pointing madly at the Doctor.

Rose shook her head quickly. "He didn't do anything. Mum, you _know_ he wouldn't. It was just an accident." She decided to leave out the bit about the Tardis. That was need to know information and right now her mum was the last person who needed to know. She'd never be able to understand the ship had an independent consciousness, she'd blame the Doctor forever and Rose couldn't have that.

"Be thankful I didn't end up on some planet somewhere with a bunch of strangers," she added instead, for emphasis. The Doctor squeezed her hand.

Rose tore her eyes away from Jackie's and turned to Luke again. Much as it felt wrong having this conversation holding another blokes hand, she knew if she let go of the Doctor his image would disappear again and she needed him there.

"Luke, I never meant to hurt you, but I have to tell you the truth," she began. "If it wasn't for this happening… I was leaving anyway."

"Rose -" he started, but she cut him off.

"It's true, isn't it dad?"

Pete nodded. "Sorry mate," he told him.

"Rose," Luke started again. "I knew you weren't happy. I should have called the wedding off myself, but I was being selfish. I thought having you at all was better than nothing, but it would have been wrong."

Rose stared at him. "What did I ever do to deserve you?" she asked him quietly. He smiled, but his eyes were sad.

"I'm going to go inside and tell everyone what's happening, let you say your goodbyes," he told her. "Take care of yourself babe."

"I will. You too," Rose told him. Everyone watched him leave, before Jackie started up again.

"Rose sweetheart there must be a way back to us!"

"Mum, the Doctor has tried, he really has. There _is_ no way back, not for anything other than this. And even if there was -"

"What?" Jackie asked quickly.

"Mum, I'm where I've desperately wanted to be for the last five years," Rose pleaded. "I am going to miss all of you _so_ much, but I need you to know, I'm happier than I've been in a long time."

Jackie smiled an odd smile, one that came with tears and a strangled sob.

"I wish I could give you a hug sweetheart," she managed at last.

"Me too," Rose told her, matching tears starting from her eyes. The Doctor moved closer to her and gently took hold of her wrist, above their joined hands.

Jackie turned her attention to him.

"You're all she's got," she wailed at him.

"I know," he replied solemnly.

"She loves you," she told him, in case Rose hadn't got round to that bit.

"I love her too," he assured her and as if for emphasis, leaned in and kissed her gently on the temple.

"Hey, hey!" Mickey cried. "It's like that now is it? That's quick work Rose!"

"Will you shut up?" she snapped playfully, but blushed crimson with it.

The Doctor grinned like the cat that got the cream and even Jackie laughed despite the situation.

"Well, good," she decided at last. "Lord knows it's what she's wanted ever since she's known you."

"Mum!" Rose cried. The Doctor shot Jackie a quick grin.

"Just keep her safe," Jackie told him at last. "And don't break her heart."

"I will, and I won't," the Doctor promised her. He turned to Rose. "We have to go," he told her.

"OK. God, I don't know what to say," she cried, turning to her family. "I love you all so much! I'll miss you. Take care of each other. I can't believe I won't see you grow up," she told Jonny, who was peeping out from behind Jackie's dress again and frowning. He didn't understand. "Be a good boy," she told him, tears running freely down her face.

"I _am_ a good boy," he told her and everyone laughed.

"I've got to go," Rose said. "I love you mum."

With that the image of the two of them standing hand-in-hand disappeared and Jackie was left staring at the space where they had been. Dappled sunlight filtered through the trees and spotted the grass beneath. She let herself be folded in to her husband's arms and cried her heart out.


	4. Epilogue

**Aw - it's all over! It has been great fun writing this, thanks to all of you for reviewing.**

**Epilogue**

"Here you go, three portions of chips," Martha Jones announced, settling herself on the end of the bench and handing them out.

The Doctor and Rose unlinked their arms and accepted their food. Rose tore hungrily through the paper holding hers and dug around for a chip. She shoved it in her mouth and moaned with delight.

"Lush!" she decided, around the mouthful.

"Anyone would think you hadn't had chips in years," the Doctor told her.

"We haven't been back to Earth for ages," she replied. "It feels like years."

"You've been back with me for nearly a year," he reminded her. "We've visited Earth at least -"

"Seven times," Martha told him, holding a chip daintily with her wooden fork. The Doctor smiled at Rose triumphantly. "But only three of those times were in an era where we could get decent chips," Martha added.

"Ha," Rose countered. "See? I'm right. Thank you darlin," she grinned at Martha. Sometimes it was _so_ good having another girl around. Martha grinned back and nibbled at her chip, holding back a strand of silky black hair that the autumn breeze was trying to whip in to her mouth.

"Shakespeare offered us chips," the Doctor complained. "Well," he added, and the girls rolled their eyes, knowing with certainty what was coming, "when I say chips, they were more like lumps of potato. And when I say lumps of potato -"

"They _were_ lumps of potato," Rose confirmed. "And they _weren't _decent. They were green."

The Doctor sulked and the three of them ate in silence for a moment. It was a chilly early evening in October and the sky was darkening rapidly. Strings of coloured lights swung gently above them.

"So," Rose said finally, gazing out over the water and watching the boats bob up and down. "Why _are_ we in Cardiff exactly?"

"I told you," the Doctor said, motioning over his shoulder with a chip to where the Tardis stood a little way behind them. "Rift."

"I don't buy it," Rose told him. "You're being -"

"Cagey," Martha finished for her.

"That's it, cagey," Rose agreed.

The Doctor scowled. "I knew it was a mistake to invite you along," he told Martha. Both girls laughed.

"Come on," Rose said, nudging him with her shoulder, her chips momentarily forgotten. "What's going on?"

"OK," the Doctor conceded. "I _do_ have another reason for coming here."

"I _knew_ it," Martha cried.

"And?" Rose asked.

"Actually," the Doctor said. "He's a bit late. I thought he might have found us by -" He was cut short by the sound of a vehicle screeching to a halt some way behind them. The three of them stood, turned and watched as someone jumped from the large black car that had pulled up in front of the Millennium Centre, and ran full pelt towards the Tardis.

Rose took a shaky step forward. Her chips fell like confetti at her feet.

"I tracked down an old friend," the Doctor said softly, suddenly appearing at her shoulder.

"Jack," she whispered.

And then she was off, running towards the Tardis and not stopping until he saw her and she threw herself in to his arms.

As the Doctor and Martha ambled over, he explained who their mystery friend was. Up ahead Jack and Rose were glued together, foreheads touching, words tumbling from both their mouths. When they reached the Tardis the Doctor was surprised to be gathered up in Jack's arms. The former time-agent planted a massive kiss on the Doctor's cheek and set him down.

"Didn't think you'd recognise me," the Doctor told him.

"I work for Torchwood now Doc, I've seen the new pretty boy image in the tapes from the battle for Canary Wharf."

"Ah," the Doctor replied. "That's what they're calling it is it?" he muttered.

"How come you're working for Torchwood?" Rose asked, intrigued.

"It's a long story," Jack told her.

"Here, in Cardiff?" she asked. "Where's your base?"

"Actually," he replied, grinning broadly, "you're standing on it."

"And you drove because -" Rose began.

"Still a smart-ass ain't she?" Jack asked the Doctor.

"Some things never change," the Doctor agreed, smiling at Rose fondly.

"And this is?" Jack asked, taking Martha's hand and kissing the back of it like some kind of fairytale prince.

"Martha Jones," she told him briskly.

"A pleasure," he replied, a familiar glint in his eye.

"Don't mind him," Rose told her. "He doesn't bite."

"I can if you want," Jack added, grinning wickedly. "You guys eaten?"

"Sort of," Rose said. "But we only had a couple of chips before you turned up."

"Then let's eat out - I know this great little restaurant, my shout," Jack offered.

"Not the one I took Margaret too?" the Doctor asked quickly.

"Nah, don't worry!" Jack assured him. "But after that, you and me have got to have a talk," he told the Doctor sternly, and the Doctor had the good sense to nod quickly.

"I rather thought you might say something like that," he told his friend. "In fact, I think I'm getting off rather lightly, all things considered."

"Yeah well," Jack told him, gazing at Rose intently. "You're talking to a guy who found the name of a good friend on a list of the dead - guess seeing Rosie here alive and well has softened me up a bit."

The Doctor nodded in grim understanding, but Jack's grin was soon back. "May I?" he asked Martha, holding out his arm. She took it somewhat warily and they started off, walking a little way ahead of the Doctor and Rose, who began to amble behind them.

"How did you find him?" Rose asked, watching as Jack walked confidently ahead, tugging on Martha's arm and pointing out stuff around them.

"I've been keeping an eye on Torchwood ever since... Well, he popped up. Couldn't believe he was here."

"I guess he thought we might come back here one day. Maybe he wanted us to find him."

The Doctor hadn't thought of that. He smiled. "Hope so."

"Thanks," Rose told him, stopping and pulling gently on his arm so that he stopped too.

The Doctor smiled down at her. "No problem," he told her.

Rose stepped closer and rewarded him with a gentle kiss. When she pulled away, the Doctor tugged her soft, purple scarf straight and slid his arm around her shoulders.

As they moved off again, Rose watched Jack and Martha climb the steps to the higher level ahead of them and disappear around the corner.

"Come on," she said. "We're losing them!" she grabbed the Doctor's hand and they took off across the plaza.

And they ran on like that together, up the steps and along the walkway.

Hand in hand.

_The End_


End file.
